The knight's body hit the ground, and I was already moving toward the next one.

  The square erupted in shouts. Knights turned away from the buildings they'd been torching, away from the fleeing townspeople, their attention snapping to me.

  "Contact! Unknown hostile in the square!"

  "Formation! Defensive formation!"

  They moved with trained precision, shields coming up, swords drawn. But their formation was meant for fighting other soldiers, not for something like me.

  I didn't slow down.

  The tendrils lashed out in four different directions at once. One knight blocked with his shield—the tendril punched straight through the metal and kept going. Another tried to dodge, but the tendril curved mid-strike, catching him in the side.

  Two more knights charged from my left. I shifted my right hand into a blade and caught the first sword strike, metal screaming against the dark edge. My left hand stayed clawed, raking across his face above the helmet's edge.

  The second knight swung low, aiming for my legs. A tendril caught his wrist mid-swing, yanked him off balance. Nox was there in an instant, jaws closing on the knight's exposed throat.

  "What is that thing?"

  "Kill it! Kill it!"

  Five knights rushed me at once. The tendrils retracted, coiling back, then exploded outward in a wide arc. Three of them went down immediately. The other two got close enough that I had to engage them directly.

  I let my hands shift again, both arms extending into long, segmented blades. The first knight's sword bounced off one blade while the other cut through the gap in his armor at the hip. He crumpled.

  The last one backed away, shield raised, sword trembling.

  I didn't pursue him. There were bigger problems.

  A group of knights had formed up near the burning tavern, maybe eight of them in tight formation. Behind them, I could see townspeople huddled against a wall, trapped.

  Another knight pointed his sword at me.

  "Spread out! Don't let it use reach against you! Archers, loose!"

  I looked up just as three arrows flew toward me from a rooftop. The tendrils moved on instinct, batting two aside. The third would have hit my chest, but the dark armor absorbed it, the arrow disintegrating against the surface.

  The archers were already nocking another volley.

  I couldn't leave them up there. The tendrils shot upward, extending farther than they had before, stretching across the distance to the rooftop. Two archers went down before they could release their arrows. The third managed to loose his shot before a tendril wrapped around his leg and yanked him off the roof.

  He screamed on the way down.

  The scream cut off when he hit the cobblestones.

  Still nothing. No guilt. Just the awareness that the threat was neutralized.

  What had I become?

  A sword slashed toward my back. I spun, catching it on a blade, then drove a tendril through the attacker's chest. Another knight tried to flank me. Nox intercepted, bringing him down in a spray of blood.

  The knight was shouting orders, trying to organize a coordinated assault. Smart. But I couldn't let them organize.

  I charged the formation.

  The tendrils led the assault, striking high while I went low. Shields came up to block the tendrils, leaving lower guards exposed. My bladed arms cut through legs, finding the gaps in armor at the knees and thighs.

  The formation broke.

  They scattered, and scattered enemies were easier to handle than organized ones. I moved through them like water, the dark armor shifting and changing with every strike. Claws. Blades. Once, my entire arm hardened into a massive hammer that crushed a knight's helmet.

  One knight lasted longer than the others. He was good as he managed to deflect two tendril strikes and almost landed a hit on my side.

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  Almost.

  A tendril caught his ankle. He went down hard. Before he could recover, I was on him, blade pressed against his throat just above the gorget.

  "Call them off," I said, my distorted voice cutting through his heavy breathing. "Order your men to retreat."

  He glared up at me through his helmet, eyes wide with fear and hate. "Go to hell, monster."

  I scoffed. “Hypocrites.”

  The blade sliced through. His eyes went wide, then empty. Blood pooled beneath his head, spreading across the cobblestones in thin rivulets.

  I stood slowly, stepping back from the body.

  I stared at the crimson staining my hands. Not just from this knight, but from all of them. The blood wasn't washing away in the rain that had started to fall. It clung to me like it belonged there.

  The square had gone quiet except for the crackling of flames and the soft patter of rain on stone. The surviving knights had fled. The townspeople had vanished into whatever shelter they could find.

  I had called them hypocrites. But standing there, surrounded by the bodies I'd made, I realized the truth was simpler than that.

  I was the monster now.

  The flames reflected in the pooled blood at my feet, and I turned away from the square, leaving the dead behind me.

  =====

  Nicholaus pressed his back against the stone wall, his crimson cloak billowing in the wind that swept through the ruined courtyard. Where his left arm should have been, only a torn sleeve remained, soaked dark with blood that dripped steadily onto the ground below.

  "Still standing," Gorvain observed, his voice carrying the flat tone of a man discussing the weather. "Impressive for someone missing an arm."

  Nicholaus spat blood to the side, never taking his eyes off Gorvain. The metallic taste coated his tongue, mixing with the bitter knowledge that he was outmatched.

  Never in his wildest dreams had he expected to encounter this man again.

  A few years ago, Nicholaus had met Gorvain once during the five kingdoms' annual joint expedition into the Great Labyrinth.

  What should have been a routine exploration had turned into something far dangerous when they'd encountered the nest of monsters on the thirty-second floor.

  He almost died that day.

  If not for him...

  The Butcher.

  Gorvain had earned that name after the expedition, and from what Nicholaus had witnessed, it was an understatement.

  While they were both A-rank, meeting Gorvain had made Nicholaus painfully understand the chasm between them. There were those who achieved their rank through skill and dedication, and then there were those like Gorvain who seemed born for violence, shaped by it into something barely human.

  "Why?" he muttered between labored breaths, his left side throbbing where his arm had been. The pain was becoming distant now, shock setting in. "Why are you here? What does Drakmoor want with a backwater town like Oakenford?"

  "Hmm?" Gorvain tilted his head slightly.

  For a moment there was silence.

  Then Gorvain's lips twisted into a smile that belonged on no human face.

  His scarred features contorted into something that made Nicholaus's blood run cold.

  "Peace makes men weak," Gorvain's voice carried a note of deranged delight now.

  "King Malachar grows tired of treaties and negotiations. Tired of watching his people grow soft while pretending to play nice with the other kingdoms." He gestured broadly at the burning town around them. "So we decided to give everyone a little reminder of what war feels like. Starting here, moving there, until the whole continent remembers why they should fear Drakmoor."

  The smile widened impossibly. "Chaos is so much more honest than peace, don't you think?"

  Nicholaus stood frozen, the words echoing in his mind.

  War. Drakmoor wanted war, and Millbrook and Oakenford was just the opening move in a game that would consume thousands of lives.

  Gorvain raised his sword as he stepped forward to deliver the killing blow.

  A crimson magic circle blazed to life in front of Nicholaus as he forced the incantation through gritted teeth.

  Three spears of flame materialized, their tips white-hot as they launched toward Gorvain.

  The Butcher moved with ease as his sword swept in a lazy arc, deflecting the first spear into the rubble. He sidestepped the second, letting it crash harmlessly into the wall behind him. The third he caught on his blade and spun it back toward Nicholaus, who threw himself to the side as his own magic scorched the stone where he'd been standing.

  Gorvain's deranged smile widened as he watched Nicholaus struggle to his knees.

  "That's it?" He laughed as he shook his head in mock disappointment. "Are you really the Crown Guild branch head? Or did they just give you the position because you look good in that fancy cloak?"

  The sword point dropped to hover inches from Nicholaus's throat.

  "Drakmoor's children could cast stronger spells than that."

  The sword point pressed closer to Nicholaus's throat, close enough that he could feel the cold steel against his skin.

  Then a black blur erupted from the shadows.

  Gorvain's head snapped up just as four dark tendrils lashed toward him from impossible angles. His sword came up instinctively, catching two of the strikes, but the third grazed his shoulder plate with a screech of metal on metal. The fourth forced him to twist away, his boots sliding on the blood-slicked stone.

  "What—"

  He didn't finish the sentence. The creature that had attacked him landed in a crouch between him and Nicholaus, and Gorvain's eyes widened behind his helmet.

  It stood like a human but at the same time it was not.

  Dark, organic armor covered every inch of its form, shifting and flowing as if alive. Four tendrils writhed from its back like serpents, their tips gleaming with razor edges. Where its face should have been, a mask of the same dark material stared back at him with glowing amber eyes.

  "Interesting," Gorvain murmured, his deranged smile returning as he rolled his shoulder where the tendril had struck.

  Very interesting indeed."

  The creature said nothing, but the tendrils coiled and uncoiled like a predator preparing to strike.

  Gorvain shifted his stance, sword raised. "You know, I was just starting to get bored."

  The creature's head tilted slightly, and when it spoke, the voice was distorted, layered with something inhuman that made the air itself seem to vibrate.

  "This won't take long."

  Gorvainn let out a bark of delighted laughter. "Oh, this just gets better and better."

  Gorvain's deranged smile stretched impossibly wide as he raised his blade, the steel singing through the air. The creature's tendrils coiled like striking snakes, ready to unleash hell upon the courtyard.

  The rain began to fall harder, washing the blood from the stones as two monsters prepared to dance.